


Saint Bartholomew

by Ariane_DeVere



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: And chapter 4 will return to the fluff like woah, Angst, Best Friends, But chapter 3 will put things right, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Probable (implied) UST, So much fluff (literally) that it’ll make your teeth rot, Then it dials up the angst, Until you get to chapter 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-09 02:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18907213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariane_DeVere/pseuds/Ariane_DeVere
Summary: Sherlock rarely reveals much about his youth.  When John finds out something about his childhood and makes a nice gesture, why should Sherlock care?  After all, sentiment? Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side.





	1. Chapter 1

_[Just to put the timing in context, the first two sections take place before the Fall; the last section happens on the day of Sherlock’s return.]_

 

“You took a lot of notice of what the client’s daughter was holding,” John commented. “Did you have one when you were a kid?”

“Yes,” Sherlock admitted, “when I was very young. Mycroft sneered and told me that only little children needed such things. He persuaded me to get rid of it.”

“How old were you?” John asked softly.

Sherlock shrugged. “Five.”

\--------------------

“What’s this? We don’t give each other Christmas presents.”

John smiled. “Couldn’t resist; saw it in a shop window. If you hate it, it’s no big deal. You can chuck it out.”

Sherlock’s face was expressionless when he opened the box, and John never saw the contents again. John wasn’t surprised; his instinctive purchase had been stupid.

\--------------------

Once Sherlock had convinced a hysterical Mrs Hudson that she wasn’t seeing a ghost, he made his way upstairs. Seeing his home for the first time in two years was such a relief, spoiled only by John’s absence. Apparently he really _had_ got on with his life.

He opened the door to his wardrobe and smiled with delight. Still sitting on the shelf inside was John’s ridiculous gift, proof of their friendship, proof that John cared, the pointless foolish ludicrous and soppy present which Sherlock had tried not to love but nevertheless did, and had named accordingly.

Saint Bartholomew the teddy bear.

* * *

The 221B Author’s Note

I’m sure there have been many other fanfics where Sherlock had a much-loved teddy bear, either as a child or later as an adult, but I was watching something over the weekend (I can’t even remember what, now), saw a teddy as part of the background and had a moment of not-very-original inspiration.

And then while I was thinking about a 221B ficlet (it _had_ to be a 221 with such an obvious ‘b’ word at the end), I realised that if John gave Sherlock a bear, Sherlock would behave as if he wasn’t interested but would secretly be thrilled, and would name it in honour of the place where he and John first met.

I rarely write G-rated fic (mostly because I have a filthy mind, and also because I’ll ship the boys ’til my dying day), but if you’re feeling kind (and if you also have a filthy/shippy mind) I’m sure you can understand that, had I had more than 221 words to play with, Sherlock would have grabbed Bartholomew, gone round to John’s flat and stood outside holding up the bear and looking mournful until John broke off his relationship with Mary, packed his bags, dragged Sherlock home and the two of them didn’t leave the bedroom for days.

Actually, John probably wouldn’t stop to pack his bags.

* * *

Additional note: This was meant to be a silly one-off ficlet, but comments from some of my readers inspired an idea for a second chapter. Since then my plotbunny had even more inspiration, and this will now be a four chapter story.


	2. Chapter 2

_[Inspired by readers’ comments on the original standalone 221B ficlet, this longer ‘missing scene’ takes place between the second and third segments of that story, i.e. after the Fall and before Sherlock’s return._

_**Warnings** : Unlike the first fluffy chapter, this one cranks up the angst to the max. The original story was rated G; I’ve now upped the rating to PG. The chapter incorporates brief memories of John’s phone call with Sherlock on the roof of St Bart’s, and of the Fall itself.]_

John moved out of Baker Street shortly after Sherlock’s funeral. Returning home after the ceremony, he took off his jacket but then couldn’t bring himself to sit down in the living room. After pacing ceaselessly around the flat for more than fifteen minutes, clenching and unclenching his fists, he went upstairs to his bedroom, changed out of his formal suit into jeans and a jumper, packed a holdall with a few clothes and toiletries and then rang Greg Lestrade.

“John,” Greg said on answering his phone. “How are you doing?”

“I need ...” John took a shaky breath. “I need ...”

His voice broke and he couldn’t continue.

“I’m on my way,” Greg told him. “John. Keep it together, mate. I’ll be there in ten.”

Despite driving his own car and not a police vehicle with its helpful siren and flashing lights, Greg arrived within six minutes after breaking several road traffic laws en route. He pulled up at the kerb to find John sitting on the steps outside the door of 221, his head lowered and his shoulders hunched. A holdall was beside him with a jacket draped over it. Greg leaned over and opened the passenger door and John picked up his bag and trudged towards him.

“Mrs Hudson?” Greg asked after John had got in and closed the door.

“I texted Mrs Turner and asked her to come round,” John said quietly. “I know I should stay with her. She’s in such a state, but I just _can’t_ ...”

“It’s all right,” Greg told him as John’s throat tightened. “She’ll understand better than anyone. Mrs Turner’ll take care of her tonight, and we’ll check up on her tomorrow.” He put the car in gear and pulled out into the traffic.

“I’m sorry,” John said after a couple of minutes of silence. “I didn’t even ask you ...”

“You didn’t _need_ to ask,” Greg assured him. “You can stay at mine for as long as you like.” He smiled a little. “After a few nights on my uncomfortable sofa you’ll probably be desperate to go home.”

He glanced across to John, saw the look of devastation on his face and grimaced at his thoughtless comment.

“Stay as long as you need,” he said.

\--------------------

John returned only once to Baker Street. Months after he had visited Sherlock’s grave with Mrs Hudson, months after he had started moving from friend’s house to friend’s house, staying in their spare bedroom or sleeping on their couch for as long as they would tolerate him, he finally admitted to himself that he simply couldn’t live in the flat again. It had done some good to stay away, because the press found it more difficult to track him down and pester him with increasingly high offers of money for an exclusive interview. Finally the media’s interest in the fraudulent detective was beginning to die down, and at the same time Stella and Ted were starting to drop hints that it was time for John to leave their home.

Thankful that even during the worst period of his grieving process his PTSD hadn’t flared up and so neither his tremor nor the limp had returned, he finally felt ready to start working again and found a permanent GP role in a surgery in the suburbs, far away from the Baker Street area. He registered with several local estate agents, visited a few places which they offered and eventually settled on renting a small but pleasant basement flat which even had its own garden.

On the day that he was given the keys to the flat he realised that he would have no choice but to go to Baker Street and collect the rest of his possessions. The thought filled him with dread but he steeled himself and phoned Mrs Hudson. She was tearful during their conversation, especially when he told her that he had found somewhere else to live, but she said that she understood. He resisted the temptation to ask her to pack up his stuff for him and have it couriered over, and instead arranged to go there at the weekend.

John had had many terrible days since Sherlock’s death. That Saturday seemed worse than most of them. When he first got to 221 he felt fairly strong, especially after spending some time with Mrs Hudson; she was very weepy when talking about Sherlock’s and John’s time living in her house, and John went into doctor mode and was kind and sympathetic with her. When he managed to get away he went straight up to the second floor and emptied his wardrobe and chest of drawers, putting everything into the same boxes he had used to move in all that time ago and which had been stored in the spare bedroom next to his ever since.

But eventually he couldn’t avoid the inevitable and he slowly walked down the stairs and into the living room. It hurt being there again; Mrs Hudson had told him that after packing most of Sherlock’s scientific equipment into boxes she hadn’t been able to bring herself to start clearing the rest of his stuff, and so the living room looked almost the same as when he had last been there. There were so many memories in the room, all of them overwritten by the much stronger memory of Sherlock plummeting to the ground outside the hospital. Grimly John extracted his few possessions from the room – his medical books, some novels, DVDs and a few other bits – then he went into the kitchen and had a quick look through the cupboards. The only thing he felt like taking was his RAMC mug which he had brought with him from his lonely bedsit. Everything else in the kitchen had either been provided by Mrs Hudson or was something he and/or Sherlock had bought, and John didn’t want anything which he would always associate with his friend.

He didn’t know what made him turn and look towards the closed door of Sherlock’s bedroom. There was nothing of John’s in there; indeed he had only gone into the room on a couple of occasions the whole time he had lived here. Dismissing the need to go in there, he went to the bathroom instead and picked up a few remaining toiletries he hadn’t taken with him before, then came out in the hallway. He would never understand why he turned left instead of right, nor what made him open the bedroom door and step inside.

The room was colder than the rest of the flat and John realised that one of the windows was slightly open. Putting his toiletries onto the bed he walked across to the window and closed it, then turned and wandered idly around the room. There were no major memories to hurt him here, and he even smiled slightly when he remembered Greg helping him to haul a drugged and mumbling Sherlock into the room and dump him onto the bed after his first encounter with Irene Adler. He was about to pick up his stuff and leave when his gaze fell on the wardrobe in the corner. He grimaced. Mrs Hudson hadn’t said anything about Mycroft visiting to remove any of Sherlock’s possessions, and John assumed that Sherlock’s clothes were still in the wardrobe.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ he told himself silently. Looking inside could only cause him pain and it was stupid to even consider it. But there was a sudden and unreasonable yearning to see those ridiculously expensive suits one last time and, after hesitating for a very long while, John finally pulled open the door and looked inside.

“Oh, my God.” His voice came out as a whimper and he stumbled backwards, sank down onto the side of the bed and stared into the wardrobe in disbelief.

\--------------------

If you had said to John that one day he would buy Sherlock a teddy bear, John would have shaken his head and (if he was in a good mood) would have told you that you were mad or (if he wasn’t in such a good mood) would have told you that you were _mad_.

When he _did_ find himself buying a bear for Sherlock it wasn’t intended as a joke – John would never be that unkind – but at the start of a new case he had noticed how Sherlock had been slightly distracted when the client came to Baker Street and brought her six year old daughter with her. The little girl had almost inevitably started to get fractious within a few minutes of their arrival, bored with the serious conversation going on around her. The moment she started to whine and tug on her mother’s arm, Mrs Draper reached into her large handbag, pulled out a teddy bear and handed it to her daughter, suggesting that she go and play on the sofa and let the grown-ups talk. The girl scrambled up onto the cushions and played quietly with her bear for the rest of the interview.

John would have expected Sherlock to dismiss the girl from his mind while he focussed on the client’s situation, but every time the girl shifted into a new position Sherlock’s eyes would flicker across to her. John assumed that he was irritated that her movements were breaking his concentration but there was an unusual expression on the detective’s face. He looked almost ... wistful? For a while John wasn’t sure what could be prompting such a look. It was only later when, as part of her quiet game, the girl gently tossed her teddy bear to the other end of the sofa and Sherlock’s gaze shifted accordingly that John realised that it was the bear and not the girl which Sherlock had been watching.

When John mentioned it after the mother and child had left, Sherlock shrugged off the loss of his childhood teddy bear at such a young age. However, when they visited the client’s home six days later to help her save her business by giving her the evidence that one of her partners had been siphoning funds from the company, Sherlock’s eyes swept around her living room with more than his usual speculative and deductive gaze.

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about Janet bothering us today,” Mrs Draper assured him. “She’s at school.”

If John had been a hopeless romantic, he would have thought that Sherlock looked a little disappointed. But of course he wasn’t a hopeless romantic. Not in the least.

He bought the teddy bear a week and a half later.

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision – he noticed the bear in a shop window because it had more than a passing resemblance to Janet Draper’s teddy. John stopped and looked at it for a while, weighing up whether to risk buying it. It wasn’t expensive and eventually he decided that it wouldn’t be too much of a waste of money if, as was more than likely, Sherlock was not impressed by his purchase.

“Couldn’t resist; saw it in a shop window. If you hate it, it’s no big deal. You can chuck it out.”

Knowing Sherlock’s dislike of Christmas and all its traditions, John hadn’t used Christmassy wrapping paper to cover the plain brown box he had found to put the bear into. Actually he’d thought it pointless wasting money on paper at all because it was almost inevitable that Sherlock would take one look at his present and would either throw a hissy fit at such a childish gift or be sneeringly sarcastic at John’s sentimental behaviour. In either case John wouldn’t be surprised if Sherlock promptly took the box to his bedroom and dropped it out of the window onto the top of Mrs Hudson’s bins.

It was impossible to tell _what_ Sherlock’s reaction was when he opened the box and looked inside. There was no obvious sign of anger or annoyance; neither did he seem impressed or pleased. He seemed to have switched off completely, continuing to look down into the box but not reacting in any way. When he finally started to lift his head, John couldn’t stand it and surged to his feet and turned away before Sherlock could look at him.

“Anyway, like I said, no big deal. I’m going for a shower.”

When he came back to the living room later there was no sign of the box or its contents, and Sherlock never mentioned it. John wasn’t surprised; his instinctive purchase had been stupid.

\--------------------

“He kept it.” John’s voice was barely a whisper as he stared at the teddy bear sitting on the shelf inside the wardrobe. 

But it was more than that. Sherlock hadn’t just kept it; hadn’t just left the bear in its box and shoved it in the bottom of the wardrobe. He had deliberately taken it out of the box and had sat it on a shelf where he would see it every time he opened the door.

Sentiment. From Sherlock. From the man who John had accused of being a machine less than half an hour before he died. 

_“I’m a fake.”_

Sherlock’s tearful voice sounded in John’s head.

_“Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?”_

_How_ could he ever have believed that Sherlock was incapable of feeling emotion? How could he have thought that Sherlock didn’t care about him? He had proved it time and time again and now, as if to show John one last time, there sat the evidence on the shelf in front of him ...

Mrs Hudson came in some time later, worried by the long silence from upstairs, and found him sitting on the side of Sherlock’s bed. He still had tears on his cheeks.

“Oh, John.” Mrs Hudson sat down beside him and took his hand. “It’s all too much for you, isn’t it?”

Sniffling, John pointed to the open door of the wardrobe. She looked over at the bear sitting on the shelf.

“Oh, that silly old thing,” she said. “I saw it a few times when we were searching for drugs. Didn’t you notice it before?”

“I never searched his bedroom,” John said quietly. “You always started in here while I did the lounge, and then we both did the kitchen.”

“Oh, yes, I remember.” She looked at the way that John was staring teary-eyed at the bear. “Do you want to take it with you?”

“No!” John’s voice cracked on the word.

She patted his hand. “It’s all right,” she said gently.

“It’ll never be all right, Mrs Hudson,” he said shakily. “I don’t understand any of it. Why did he do it? Why did he lie about making up Moriarty? I _know_ he was lying. He _must_ have been. Why did he kill himself instead of proving that everyone was wrong about him? Why didn’t he trust me enough to help him? And why did he keep that stupid ... bloody ... bear ...”

His voice broke again and he pulled his hand free, standing up and walking across to grab the wardrobe door. Tempted as he was to slam it shut, he stopped himself just in time and instead closed it gently. He ran his hands over his face, took in a long deep breath and blew it out again, and turned back to his former landlady and gave her a brief apologetic smile.

“I can’t stay here,” he told her. He picked up his toiletries with one hand and offered the other to her. She took it and stood up and they left the room, Mrs Hudson closing the door behind them. Leaving her to make her way back downstairs, John went back to his bedroom and packed up the last box.

Ten minutes later, after giving Mrs Hudson one last hug and promising that he would keep in touch, John piled the last of his possessions into the back of his car and drove away from 221B Baker Street for the final time.


	3. Chapter 3

_[This chapter takes place about a year after Season 4 of blessed memory. ~~(As in: it would be a blessed mercy if Season 4 (or at least episode 3) were wiped from my memory ...)~~ ]_

 

“Come back to Baker Street.”

Sherlock blurted out the sentence without warning, and John frowned. They were in John’s living room and John had been talking about Rosie and the upset stomach she’d had yesterday. He’d been complaining about how he had spent all night cleaning up vomit and worse, and then Sherlock came out with what seemed to be an irrelevant instruction. John sighed quietly, assuming that Sherlock was bored with talk about babies and domesticity.

“Got a case, then?” he asked a little tightly.

“No.” Sherlock looked uncomfortable. “I meant, move back to Baker Street. Come back and live there again.”

John stared. Sherlock wasn’t meeting his eyes; he was perched on the front of the sofa and was fiddling awkwardly with a loose thread on the blanket draped over its arm.

“Why ...” John swallowed. “I mean, you know I can’t.”

“Why not?” Sherlock asked quietly, still not looking up.

“Why _not_?” John asked, fury starting to bubble up inside him. He paused and forced himself to apply the lessons he had learned during the anger management course he was three-quarters of the way through. Why was he feeling anger? Was he angry at himself, or at the person who had started the feeling of anger? Reluctantly he admitted to himself that, in an ideal world, he _wanted_ to go back to the place he still thought of as home, but it simply wasn’t possible and therefore Sherlock’s suggestion was upsetting him. It wasn’t specifically Sherlock’s fault that John’s rage was rising and so he shouldn’t take it out on him unless it later transpired that Sherlock was deliberately provoking him. Right now, that was unlikely. If anything, Sherlock was simply being thoughtless.

“Look,” he said, forcing himself to stay calm. “It’s not practical. That flat would be a death trap for Rosie. There are stairs everywhere and the bedrooms are on a different floor to the living room and the kitchen. And the kitchen’s a disaster area at the best of times. Jesus, Sherlock, the stuff you keep in the fridge – imagine once Rosie can reach high enough to open the door and take stuff off the shelves!”

“Child gates,” Sherlock said.

“What?” John asked.

“Mrs Hudson and I have had workmen in, fitting child gates at the top and bottom of each flight of stairs,” Sherlock said, still not looking up. “Even if you don’t come back permanently, you can visit more often and bring Rosie with you because there’ll be child gates keeping her away from the stairs. Also, the workmen attached child locks to the fridge and on all the cupboard doors in the kitchen, the bathroom and the living room.”

He looked up briefly at John, then his gaze skittered away and he stared towards the window. His tone was uncertain.

“The spare bedroom next to yours is being redecorated and made child-safe,” he continued. “Again, even if you don’t move back, you could stay over sometimes if you want to, or Mrs Hudson could babysit if we have to go out on a case and Rosie could sleep upstairs. The furniture is arriving on Thursday. Mrs Hudson and Molly helped to choose it.”

“Sherlock ...” John said, shocked, but his friend appeared to have got the bit between his teeth and pressed on.

“I’ve talked with Mrs Hudson and she realises that she’ll never get round to sorting out the basement flat and renting it out. She’s agreed that I can have it, can get the damp sorted out and can convert the kitchen into a lab. The living room and bedroom down there can serve as storage rooms for my equipment and anything else that Rosamund shouldn’t have access to. The bathroom’s already fit for purpose. When I’m working I can shut myself down there and stay out of her way. At the same time the upstairs areas will be child-safe. She wouldn’t be in any danger.”

John’s eyes were wide and his chest was tightening with hope and excitement. Sherlock kept talking.

“I realise that there’ll be times when having a child in the flat will be irritating, but once I’ve got the basement to retreat to, it shouldn’t be a problem. It really would be more convenient for all of us. It wastes time when I have to come all the way out here or you have to travel to Baker Street when I need your assistance on a case. The primary schools near me have better standards than the ones around here, and Regent’s Park is just over the road for somewhere for her to play and get fresh air. I’m sure I can persuade Mycroft to increase our security cover so that Rosie is monitored at all times. You moving back into the flat would be convenient for all of us.”

“And that’s the reason you want us to move in, is it, for the convenience to you?” John asked.

Sherlock fidgeted with the blanket. “Mrs Hudson misses spending time with Rosie,” he said.

“And ...?” John prompted.

Sherlock grimaced. For a moment John thought he wouldn’t answer but then Sherlock said softly, “I miss you.”

Only in soppy romantic fiction do people feel a warm glow spreading through their body. Despite that, John felt a warm glow spreading through his body. Almost as if he could sense it, Sherlock scowled at him.

“Don’t think for a moment that I’m starting to get sentimental, John,” he said. “It’s just more practical ...”

“I know you kept the teddy bear,” John said abruptly.

He hadn’t meant to blurt it out, and now he and Sherlock fell silent. Eventually John cleared his throat.

“I saw it in your wardrobe when I was clearing my stuff out of the flat,” he said uncomfortably. “I know, I had no reason to go in your room but ... well ... you know .. I wasn’t thinking straight back then.”

“You gave me a gift,” Sherlock mumbled. “It would be rude to dispose of it.”

“You sat it on the shelf,” John said.

“Yes, but ...”

“You sat it on the shelf,” John repeated pointedly.

Sherlock raised his head and looked John in the eyes for a long moment before he eventually said softly, “Yes.”

Things were beginning to feel awkward, and John felt it was time for a little levity. He also needed a distraction from the original topic of conversation.

“Of course, you realise that it’s the law to give a teddy bear a name?” he said nonchalantly.

“Is it?” Sherlock asked.

“No,” John smiled, “but it ought to be.”

“It has a name,” Sherlock said, not meeting his eyes and looking – in John’s opinion – adorably sheepish.

“Seriously? You gave him a name? What is it?”

Barely opening his lips, Sherlock mumbled five syllables.

John giggled. “You’re going to have to tell me so that I can actually hear it.”

Sherlock drew in a breath through his nose and, still mumbling but with a tiny bit more volume, said, “Saint Bartholomew.”

Only in soppy romantic fiction do people’s ... Anyway, despite that, John’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open. Sherlock looked anxiously at him.

“I thought it seemed appropriate,” he hurried to explain. “I thought that, because you bought it ...”

“Sherlock,” John interrupted softly, “I understand the reference. _Thank_ you. It’s a great name.”

Sherlock smiled a little. “She can’t have it,” he said.

“What?” John asked.

“Rosie. If she sees it, she’ll want it. I’ve seen her with other teddy bears. I saw the way she protested when she was playing with Mrs Turner’s granddaughter and wanted her teddy bear, and Mrs Turner told her she couldn’t have it. Clearly Rosie is a born arctophile.”

“She’s a what?!” John asked.

“An arctophile. Someone who loves teddy bears,” Sherlock explained. “I’m sure she’ll acquire many of them as time goes by. If you do move back ...” his eyes flickered towards John for a moment, and John could see the hopefulness in his expression, “... Rule One will be that she never goes in my bedroom.”

“Good luck with that,” John retorted. “If she starts living with the world’s only consulting detective, how long will it be before you teach her how to pick locks?”

Sherlock grimaced, but there was also a slight smile on his face. John continued.

“You’ll have to make the locks on flat C totally unpickable except by a genius,” he said. “Maybe you should move Bart the bear downstairs where she can’t get at him?”

“His name is Saint Bartholomew,” Sherlock said pompously.

“I do beg his pardon,” John said, then grinned.

Sherlock returned his smile, then looked at him more seriously. “What do you think?” he asked. “Would you consider it?”

“Oh, Jeez ...” John stood up and walked away across the room, his mind racing. He turned back and looked at his friend.

“Are you sure you’ve thought this through properly?” he asked. “I mean, you’re doing everything to make the place safe for Rosie, but Sherlock, she’s a kid. She’ll be noisy, and she’ll be unwell at times and want attention, and she’ll be having hissy fits at other times, and she’ll interrupt you all the time when you’re trying to concentrate, and as she gets older she’ll be talking and distracting you and she’ll want help with her homework when you’re trying to think ...”

He broke off when he saw Sherlock begin to smile. He laughed briefly.

“Yes, all right, I know that sounds just like you, but maybe that’s the problem. If we come and live with you, you’re going to be responsible for helping to bring her up and teach her how to be a rounded human being. You can’t just escape to the basement whenever she’s pissing you off; it wouldn’t be right.”

“I know it will be a responsibility,” Sherlock admitted, “and I won’t always get it right. But I’m prepared to try.”

John walked closer. “You have to do more than _try_ ,” he told him worriedly. “Please, Sherlock, I’m really tempted, but if it all goes wrong and we have to move out again, it’ll kill me. You need to be sure that you can cope with both of us living in your home.”

“ _Our_ home,” Sherlock said quietly. “It would be _our_ home.”

He stood up and looked into John’s eyes.

“I’ve thought about this for some time,” he told him. “It isn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. I discussed it many times with Mrs Hudson before we called in the workmen; I talked about it with Molly; I even discussed it with Mycroft – you can imagine what _his_ reaction was – and I’ve imagined every possible way it could go wrong. But I’ve also imagined the ways it could go _right_.”

He hesitated, then committed himself.

“I think we belong together, John,” he said. “There’s nobody else who could tolerate me and care about me like you do. And I know that she’ll drive me mad sometimes, but I am very, very fond of Rosie, and I’m not just willing to live with her, I _want_ to live with her. I want to live with both of you.”

John blinked against the prickling feeling in his eyes. Sherlock stepped a little closer and looked at him pleadingly.

“Will you come back, John?”

He held John’s gaze, and then asked the question which he _really_ meant to ask.

“Will you come home?”


	4. Chapter 4

_[And finally! This started as a 221B ficlet, and so in the interests of symmetry here’s another 221B ficlet to wrap it all up._

_This chapter takes place about two years after the previous chapter.]_

  
[x](https://www.jellycat.com/bumbly-bear-bum2br/)

my name iz saint bartholomew and i am sherlok holmes’z teddi bear.   john wattson gave me to sherrlock.   they luv each other very muchly.

i livved in a shopp window, then i wuz in a box and then i livved in a cuppboard.   sherlokc openned the door and looked at me nearly evvery day and he smiled at me evvri time.   then he didn’t open the door for a lonng time and i wuz very sad and i misssed him.   one day, john came and loooked att me but he cried and cried.   after that, they didn’t come and look at mee again for a verry long time.   i was verri lonely.

theeze days i liv in 221c bayker street and i iz ever so verry happi.   i don’t go outdoorz much, but today i’m sittinng on a workbench in a differunt labborutorri ... laborra... lubora... a lab.   sherlokk sumtimez duz scarey things in hiz lab, but i aren’t scared about being in this differunt lab, becuz jonn is here and he seemz very excited.   he’s got a gold ring in hiz pokkit and when sherlok gets heer, jon is going to arsk himm to marri him.

where are we, you ask?  where elss?  where it all begann, in the labb in the hosspital which is named after mee.

saint bartholomews.

* * *

Author’s Note:

Well, I think it’s finally finished! What started as a simple one-shot 221B ficlet grew and grew, mostly thanks to comments from readers at the end of the original ficlet, especially Batik and AnnieC on AO3 (thank you, you wonderful people!) who made suggestions about what they thought might have happened in between the second and third section of that ficlet. I got so excited with their ideas that I promptly started forming them into a second chapter. Once I realised how sad and angsty it would be, my plotbunny firmly informed me that I would then _have_ to write a fix-it third chapter; and one morning on the train I was inspired by the thought that Saint Bartholomew the bear should write the epilogue!

Looking for a photo of Saint Bartholomew wasn’t wise. I knew roughly what he ought to look like: he (and, by association, Janet Draper’s bear) had to be something that Sherlock wouldn’t find overly soppy, so he had to be a simple brown bear, nothing cutesy, not too fluffy, no smile on the face, definitely no printing on him and no plastic toe beans, _especially_ if they were heart-shaped.

It is never sensible for an arctophile like me to google images of teddies, and I had to firmly stop myself from buying about forty-five of them to add to my already large hug of bears. But the image above kept cropping up and each time I would think, “He looks about right,” and would click the weblink and then realise, “Oh, it’s him again!” After about the fourth time, I took the hint.

There actually is a Bartholomew Bear who looks similar to the one I chose (it’s sold by the same company where I found Sherlock’s bear – you can type ‘Bartholomew’ in their search engine if you’re interested in seeing him), but I felt that he was a bit too pudgy and was verging on cute, which I didn’t think Sherlock would appreciate, plus it would be too much of a coincidence for John to buy a bear that was actually called Bartholomew before Sherlock named him.

For a short while I was tempted by this bear because his hands and eyes reminded me so much of Sherlock in thinking-mode

  
[x](https://www.meddyteddy.com/products/meddy-teddy)

but I decided that he was too smiley, plus he’s not a dark enough brown and his legs look downright weird, and I just felt that Sherlock would like (and John would buy) a more traditional brown bear. 


End file.
